2022 In Review: Legends, Myths and Fandoms

While late 2021 marked the return to concerts following the pandemic shutdown, 2022 is when touring really got going.  There were still a number of tours cut short or modified due to COVID outbreaks within the tour crew, but for the most part 2022 felt normal again.

For me, 2022 was a year where I checked a few boxes on my photo bucket list, and shot some of the biggest and most important artists I’ve ever had the pleasure to photograph.  At the top of this list, undoubtedly, would be Sir Paul McCartney.  The man needs no introduction, he is a living legend.  It’s incredible that he still tours with the kind of passion that he does.  I had the chance to photograph the first of two nights of his Got Back tour in Oakland, CA, and he played a 36-song set list.  Thirty six!  And as they used to say, the set list was “all killer, no filler”.  Paul is the only artist I’ve seen that can get away with using only his own music in the pre-show.  I felt very lucky to be one of the photographers covering this tour.  His team was unusually accommodating to photographers and made our jobs easy, which only increased my respect for the man.  To see my photos from this show, check out RIFF Magazine’s review!

Another highlight was when I had the chance to photograph the legendary Pearl Jam for the first time.  I grew up in the grunge era and Pearl Jam was everywhere on the radio during those formative years of my life, making this one a pretty special show for me.  It’s amazing to see how the fans have stuck by them over the years, and their new music sounds just as vital as their older material.  For this show, I made the grave mistake of leaving a crucial piece of my gear at home - my step stool!  For shows of this size, more often than not the photographers are positioned back near the soundboard, which means you’re probably shooting over the heads of the audience.  A step stool is essential if you want to have any hope of keeping people’s heads out of your photos, and I didn’t have mine.  Instead, I had to get up on my tip-toes and brace myself against the metal barrier, and pray that nobody taller than 6’ would be in my sight-line.  For the most part things worked out, though I do wish I could have that show back - with my tallest step stool, of course.  My photos can be seen accompanying a review on RIFF Magazine.

In the same vein as Pearl Jam, I also finally got to see (and photograph) The Smashing Pumpkins this year.  Heavy nostalgia with that one!  The band looked and sounded incredible, though it turned out to be one of the hardest shows I’ve shot in recent memory because we had to shoot from behind the soundboard, and couldn’t use step stools.  Somehow, it all worked out though.

The Smashing Pumpkins

The largest tour I shot this year would belong to The Weeknd.  Originally set to tour arenas in the summer of 2020, and then postponed and eventually cancelled due to the pandemic, this tour got a post-pandemic upgrade from arenas to stadiums after The Weeknd’s unrelenting success with the hit “Blinding Lights” and a memorable Super Bowl halftime show in 2021.  This show took place at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, home of the San Francisco 49ers, and it took every advantage of the upsized venue.  Truly one of the biggest productions I’ve seen, it was breathtakingly beautiful to photograph even as it did justice the dark and ominous mood of his music.

The Weeknd

It wasn’t all big stadium and arena shows this year, however.  I also had the chance to photograph a few old favorites.  In the spring I had the chance to catch Lord Huron’s latest tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley.  Their latest album Long Lost is a brilliant concept album centered around the idea of memories lost to “time’s blur”.  These guys have a real knack for creating a deep mythology around all of their records, and to promote this record they created an old-timey radio show personality who reminisced about (fabricated) artists on a fake record label whose music and “memorabilia” they hid across Spotify and eBay, respectively.  Their shows keep this mythology in the background, letting the music speak for itself, but it’s no less fun to capture visually.  I’ll never grow tired of photographing these Michiganders.

Lord Huron

Another band I photographed yet again this year was LANY - my fifth time shooting them.  I’ve been shooting their shows since they were just getting started opening for most established bands in small clubs, and now they’re headlining some awfully big rooms around the world.  What endears me to a band like LANY is that unlike most bands, they allow photographers to shoot their entire show.  Shows like this really give me the chance to tell a story with my photography and capture a lot of unique angles and moments that rarely happen in the first three songs.  For this show, LANY’s frontman Paul Jason Klein borrowing cell phones and clothing items from the crowd, climbed high up onto the scaffolding for a song, and welcomed a fan’s newborn baby to the stage, which he cradled precariously while singing.  Epic show.

One first for me this year was being part of RIFF Magazine’s coverage of the three day BottleRock festival in Napa, California. BottleRock has been on my radar for awhile but I haven’t had the desire to brave the crowds and traffic until now, and I’m glad I finally did.  It wasn’t always easy navigating the many stages and the swarms of other photographers, but I got a chance to shoot some legendary performers for the first time like Snoop Dogg and Ice-T, some old favorites like Twenty One Pilots, and some up-and-coming artists like Ron Artis II and the Truth and OTTTO.

2022 was a great year for fans who were starved of live music during the pandemic.  I think I’ve grown more appreciative of the community of live music over these years, and especially so after being denied access to live music these last couple of years.  I shot artists with passionate fandoms this year, including former One Direction heartthrob Louis Tomlinson and K-pop boy band ATEEZ, and I’m always thrilled to document those shows because of the intense love I feel when I publish those pictures on social media.  I’m looking forward to more of these shows in 2023!

Fans of Louis Tomlinson, aka “Louies”

Want to see a few more favorites? Check out the slideshow below!

Or revisit my “Year In Review” for previous years: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015

2021 In Review: Finally, Concerts!

Finally, concerts.

My last “real” concert in 2020 came on February 29, and aside from a drive-in tribute band show later that summer (a true pandemic experience), I had very little to do until finally bands began to hit the road again in late summer this year. Without a doubt, the most boring year I’ve experienced in my life.

But we’re back!

The Black Crowes

I shook off the rust by shaking my money maker, so to speak, with The Black Crowes. I grew up listening to their music on the radio and knew many of their songs, but I must admit, I had no idea how good these guys were live. I’d always noticed how excited people seemed to get when Chris Robinson would come through town with one of his various incarnations, but it didn’t really hit me just how good he and his band might actually be. And truly, I was blown away. I couldn’t have asked for a better return to the photo pit.

During the pandemic I took the plunge and finally switched to mirrorless cameras, specifically the Nikon Z 6ii. The Black Crowes were my first show with the new bodies, and I was very, very pleased with the result.

I had some growing pains with the new gear during the first few shows I shot this year, but thankfully I was able to cut my teeth on some very well-lit, exciting shows, which made the process a bit easier. As I declared in my earlier blog post detailed my experiences with the Nikon Z system, I’m completely sold on it. It’s hard to imagine going back to a DSLR now!

2021 was, like 2020, an abbreviated year for shooting concerts. Touring didn’t really start back up until summer, and didn’t hit its stride until the fall. I didn’t end up shooting a ton of shows this year, but the ones I did I made count. I shot some of my biggest shows yet this fall, including the massive Hella Mega Tour featuring Green Day, Fall Out Boy, and Weezer.

I also had the opportunity to photograph the first night of Metallica’s 40th anniversary shows at the Chase Center in San Francisco. I had never seen Metallica live before, so was a bit unsure of what to expect. What I discovered is that after 40 years, they still rock harder than anyone else, and their audience is devoted to a degree that I truly didn’t grasp until that night. Fans traveled from all over the world to attend the festivities that weekend, which included shows at other venues by bands associated with Metallica, and they were treated to unique shows featuring deep cuts and rarities in addition to some of their biggest hits. Not many bands can get their fans to travel internationally during a pandemic for a couple of shows, but Metallica’s fans are something special.

Metallica

I also had the chance to shoot some old favorites. I shot Bleachers and LANY for the fourth time each, and in both cases was allowed to shoot the entire show from the audience, rather than the usual 3 songs from the pit or soundboard. These were especially fun shows since both bands played at larger venues with wrap-around balconies, which leads to some fun new angles to play with when you’re allowed to roam the venue like that. Wish I could shoot the whole show more often!

The biggest surprise of the year had to be Black Pumas. I knew there was some buzz around this band after their debut was nominated for a GRAMMY award, but I hadn’t listened to their music much before I shot the first of their two night stand at The Masonic in San Francisco. Lead singer Eric Burton came out on stage and wasted no time jumping into the audience, where he spent almost ten full minutes. At one point I leaned over to the roadie who was patiently waiting in the pit to help Burton get back on stage and asked, “does he always do this?”, to which he replied with a hint of amusement, “it’s always an adventure…” Yeah, suffice to say I will be sure to catch their show from now on when they’re in town.

Black Pumas

All in all, 2021 was a great year. It felt good to get back out and see shows again, and experience the unique communities that form at each of these shows. Every show is different - a Louis the Child audience is different from an Elvis Costello audience, which is different from a Metallica audience! - but in every show there’s a palpable feeling of community and belonging. I love these fan communities, how they come together and bond over their favorite bands if only for a few hours before dissipating back into normal society, and after the year a half of pandemic loneliness, I’ve never appreciated them more.

Here’s to an even better 2022, and hopefully an end to the pandemic!

Want to see a few more favorites? Check out the slideshow below!

Or revisit my “Year In Review” for previous years: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015

2019 In Review

I always look forward to writing my year-end retrospective come December, but I have to admit: this year I’ve been dragging my feet. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve felt unusually short on time this year with the compacted holiday season and all the demands being made of my time (hello, house projects!), or if it’s because this felt like a quieter year for me with regards to my music photography. Either way, blogging has felt like a little bit of a chore lately, which I guess is why I haven’t done much of it since the last year-end retrospective. But honestly, I absolutely love looking back on these posts and would hate to miss a year, so here I go, dusting off the ol’ keyboard for a bit.

As I said, this last year has been a little quieter for me with regards to music photography. Some of that has been intentional. After 2018 I was feeling a little burned out, a little discouraged by some of the industry nonsense that can be so draining. Death by a thousand cuts and all that. So I pressed pause for a bit and didn’t shoot more than a few shows in the first five months of 2019. Things picked up in June only to go cold in July and August, with summer vacations and a string of rejections forcing me to the sideline once again. But I’m not going to complain; the time away was welcome, and it helped me gain more focus than I’ve had in the past.

Late last year I wrote a blog post exploring how it’s helpful to shoot things besides music to help one get better at shooting music, and during my hiatus from the photo pit I used the time in part to practice what I was preaching. For me, that meant shooting youth sports. Having kids of a certain age means ample opportunities to capture a lot of action without a lot of restrictions or pressure, and I savored every minute.

Shooting sports is a little like shooting music I’ve found. You don’t get to control your subjects, and sometimes can’t pick the best angles to shoot from. You need to know your subject thoroughly so that you can anticipate what they’re going to do and compose the shots accordingly. And there’s tons of opportunities to capture the little unguarded human moments in between the action, which I absolutely live for. Unlike shooting music however, there’s almost more light available than you know what to do with. (Not that I’m complaining.)

I also did a bit of travel, visiting Alaska for the first time. Nature photography has always been particularly hard for me (I’m not patient enough I guess) but I had a lot of fun trying to capture mood and scale in a place too beautiful for words.

Sports and travel/nature photography aren’t something I’m experienced with, but they scratched an itch that helped rejuvenate my love for music photography, and taught me some valuable lessons that will certainly help make me a better photographer in the years ahead. Here’s to more stretching in 2020.

But what about the shows I did shoot? Well, there was a few less of them this year than in previous years, but one benefit of being more focused was that I tended to be more selective about the artists I did photograph. There weren’t many shows this year where I went home feeling like I had wasted a perfectly good evening. I also had the chance to shoot a few repeats from previous years, and discover a few new favorites along the way.

Sometimes I pick shows to shoot out of a sense of nostalgia as much as anything, and this year I had one of those shows: David Gray at the Fox Theater. It would not be an overstatement to say that David’s music, beginning with his breakout LP White Ladder, was the soundtrack to my early years living in the San Francisco Bay Area. I remember discovering White Ladder at the Virgin Megastore in downtown San Francisco (R.I.P.), and I quickly became a huge fan, devouring all his records. One of my first dates with my wife was to see David play at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, at the peak of his popularity, and sadly that was the last time I saw him live until this year.

When he released new music and announced a tour that would take him through Oakland, I had to be there to get photos. And I was pleased to find that he hasn’t slowed down in all the years that had passed since I last saw him. If anything, I was caught off guard by his joy and exuberance. He’s impossible not to love! 

David recently announced that he’s coming back to play the Greek Theatre in 2020, celebrating the 20 year anniversary of White Ladder, and you can bet I’ll be there again.

Perhaps the show I anticipated most this year was also the smallest show I shot, and it wasn’t even the headliner I was interested in. In November, a young Irish rock band known as Inhaler made their debut in the U.S., playing six shows around the country as the support act for fellow U.K. rockers Blossoms.  Inhaler is noteworthy because it’s led by Eli Hewson, son of Bono - yes, that Bono, the one from Ireland’s loudest export, aka U2. You may have seen Eli before, posing on the cover of U2’s most recent album Songs of Experience, where he looks like a spitting image of his Dad in earlier years. Eli and his schoolmates formed a band only in the last couple of years, but they have a knack for songwriting and performing already, and with Eli’s pedigree you can bet there are high expectations already forming for these young men. While waiting outside the club before the show, I met one woman, a die-hard U2 fan, who had flown in from Portland just to see their short set. Despite making it clear that their ambitions are nothing short of reaching the levels U2 has, they wisely seem to be determined to grind and not ride anyone’s coattails, as one might expect. Here’s hoping their debut album lives up to the hype, and the boys achieve all the success of that other Irish band.

Eli Hewson of Inhaler

Speaking of debuts and firsts, I had a few firsts of my own this year. I shot in a new venue, the brand-new Chase Center, home of the Golden State Warriors, when I covered John Mayer and The Black Keys’ individual tour stops there. It’s an absolutely beautiful and modern venue, and the staff running the place is unbelievable. It’s quickly becoming my favorite place to shoot a show.

And how about The Black Keys? Somehow I had never seen them live, and that was a clear mistake. I may be a little lot late to the party, but let me say, these guys are legit. I went home and bought two of their records - on vinyl, of course - after being blown away by my experience in the pit that night. 

The Black Keys

One of my favorite things to look for during a show is the little unguarded moments when artists can relax and enjoy the moment, throwing one another a look or a smile. Maybe it’s because of something surprising that happened, or maybe it’s because deep down they’re still just fans of music, and need to pinch themselves once in awhile to remember that they really do have the best job they can imagine. Whatever the reason, I live for those moments and try to catch them when I can. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney both gave me little glimpses of that unguarded joy, and I’m a bigger fan of them for it.

Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys

Patrick Carney of The Black Keys

In another first for me, I shot my first festival this year. I’m not sure how it took me so long to shoot one - it certainly wasn’t for lack of opportunities - but this year the stars aligned and I decided it was finally time to dip my toes in the hot, dirty pool. I got my feet wet with a festival known for being a bit more casual, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco. Hardly Strictly, as it’s commonly known, is a free festival held in Golden Gate Park every year for the last 20 years thanks to the generosity of a wealthy benefactor who has since passed on, though his legacy remains. For three days artists from a variety of genres, though leaning heavily on Americana and Country, parade across five stages throughout the park, playing for tens of thousands of fans of all ages. I covered the second day of the festival, and the headliner that night was a bucket lister for me: Robert Plant of Led Zepplin. I don’t know how many people packed in to see him perform with his latest incarnation, The Sensational Space Shifters, but it was a lot. Too many perhaps - people were crammed into the fenced-in meadow like cattle in a stockyard, not to mention the small army of photographers like myself who were confined to a narrow space between two barriers halfway to the soundboard position. But it was worth the challenging conditions to see a legend perform. 

Robert Plant

And better yet, I caught Robert on another (smaller) stage sitting in with the legendary Buddy Miller just prior to his headlining set. A total treat.

Not sure why, but it seems that most of my highlights for 2019 involve artists from Great Britain, so let’s keep that trend going. In October I had the chance to finally catch soulful Irish rocker Hozier at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, and was more than a little impressed. His latest album Wasteland, Baby! is brilliant, and he’s equally brilliant live. I wouldn’t hesitate to see him again in the future.

Hozier

I’ll wrap this up with a little thought about meeting artists. When I tell people that I shoot music, they usually assume that I’m hanging out with the bands backstage and becoming besties with them or something, but the truth is far less glamorous. At most shows, especially the bigger ones, you show up, do your job professionally, and go home early. The band stays backstage and most photographers aren’t getting all-access passes, so there’s no opportunity to meet the band. Your interactions are primarily with the band’s managers and publicists, not the bands themselves. So once a band reaches the level where they’re playing bigger rooms, it’s hard to meet them and find out what kind of people they really are. 

Joseph

But once in awhile you get the chance to meet an artist, and a brief interaction with them is enough to remind you that there are some really good people up on those stages who appreciate the work you do. This year I had a couple of those interactions. Back in October I had the chance to meet the women of Joseph after their show at The Fillmore, and I was blown away by their kindness and gratitude for the coverage they had received from the outlet I was working with. It was one of those moments that energizes me to keep going and do even better work.

Then, in November I took a little family vacation to Universal Studios in southern California, and on our second day checking out Harry Potter world, I looked up from my phone and saw one of the best modern rock drummers Darren King, formerly of MUTEMATH, standing right in front of me. Last time I saw Darren play, I was photographing MUTEMATH’s set opening for Twenty One Pilots at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, which I detailed in my 2016 Year In Review. Naturally, I’m a huge fan. Of course, I had to introduce myself.

I felt a little bad interrupting his time with his wife and kids, but despite my intrusion Darren was nothing short of friendly and accommodating. He was everything his reputation made him out to be.

And so I’m ending 2019 with a jolt of encouragement and enthusiasm for shooting music that I had been lacking at the start of the year. I seriously can’t wait to get going in 2020 - it’s going to be another incredible year, hopefully full of firsts and new challenges. Here’s to a great 2019, and an even better 2020!